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Long-stay Paupers in Workhouses: Maidstone
(1861)This comprehensive return by the Poor Law Board for England and Wales in July 1861 revealed that of the 67,800 paupers aged 16 or over, exclusive of vagrants, then in the Board's workhouses, 14,216 (6,569 men, 7,647 women) had been inmates for a continuous period of five years and upwards. The return lists all these long-stay inmates from each of the 626 workhouses that had been existence for five years and more, giving full name; the amount of time that each had been in the workhouse (years and months); the reason assigned why the pauper in each case was unable to sustain himself or herself; and whether or not the pauper had been brought up in a district or workhouse school (very few had). The commonest reasons given for this long stay in the workhouse were: old age and infirm (3,331); infirm (2,565); idiot (1,565); weak mind (1,026); imbecile (997); and illness (493).